The Collection (66 page)

"Um,
^"
said Charlie. "Maybe you got
something there. But-"

Despite the "but-
^"
he went home feeling
cheerful, hopeful, and mellow. And he was going through with the wedding just
as though nothing had happened. Apparently nothing, of importance, had
happened. Pete was sensible.

Charlie slept soundly that Saturday morning, and didn't
awaken until almost noon.

And Saturday nothing happened.

Nothing, that is, unless one considered the matter of the
missing golf ball as worthy of record. Charlie decided it wasn
^'
t;
golf balls disappear all too often. In fact, for a dub golfer, it is only normal
to lose at least one ball on eighteen holes.

And it was in the rough, at that.

He'd sliced his drive off the tee on the long fourteenth,
and he'd seen it curve off the fairway, hit, bounce, and come to rest behind a
big tree; with the tree directly between the ball and the green.

And Charlie
^'
s "Damn!
^"
had
been loud and fervent, because up to that hole he had an excellent chance to
break a hundred. Now he'd have to lose a stroke chipping the stymied ball back
onto the fairway.

He waited until Pete had hooked into the woods on the other
side, and then shouldered his bag and walked toward the ball.

It wasn't there.

Behind the tree and at about the spot where he thought the
ball had landed, there was a wreath of wilted flowers strung along a purple
cord that showed through at intervals. Charlie picked it up to look under it,
but the ball wasn't there.

So, it must have rolled farther, and he looked but couldn't
find it. Pete, meanwhile, had found his own hall and hit his recovery shot. He
came across to help Charlie look and they waved the following foursome to play
on through.

^"
I thought it stopped right here,"
Charlie said, "but it must have rolled on. Well, if we don't find it by
the time that foursome's off the green, I
^'
ll drop another. Say, how
^'
d
this thing get here?"

He discovered he still had the wreath in his hand. Pete
looked at it and shuddered. "Golly, what a color combination. Violet and
red and green on a purple ribbon. It stinks.
^"
The thing did
smell a bit, although Pete wasn't close enough to notice that and it wasn't
what he meant.

"Yeah, but what is it? How'd it get-"

Pete grinned.
^"
Looks like one of those
things Hawaiians wear around their necks. Leis, don
^'
t they call
them? Hey!"

He caught the suddenly stricken look on Charlie's face and firmly
took the thing out of Charlie's hand and threw it into the woods. "Now,
son,
^"
he said, "don't go adding
that
damned thing
to your string of coincidences. What's the difference who dropped it here or
why? Come on, find your ball and let's get ready. The foursome's on the green
already.
^"

They didn't find the ball.

So Charlie dropped another. He got it out into the middle of
the fairway with a niblick and then a screaming brassie shot straight down the middle
put him on, ten feet from the pin. And he one-putted for a par five on the
hole, even with the stroke penalty for a lost ball.

And broke a hundred after all. True, back in the clubhouse
while they were getting dressed, he said,
^"
Listen, Pete, about that
ball I lost on the fourteenth. Isn't it kind of funny that-"

"Nuts," Pete grunted. "Didn
^'
t you
ever lose a ball before? Sometimes you think you see where they land, and it's
twenty or even forty feet off from where it really is. The perspective fools you."

"Yeah, but-"

There was that "but" again. It seemed to be the
last word on everything that happened recently. Screwy things happen one after
another and you can explain each one if you consider it alone,
but--

"Have a drink," Pete suggested, and handed over a
bottle.

Charlie did, and felt better. He had several. It didn't
matter, because tonight Jane was going to a shower given by some girl friends
and she wouldn
^'
t smell it on his breath.

He said,
^"
Pete, got any plans for tonight?
Jane's busy and it's one of my last bachelor evenings-
^"

Pete grinned. "You mean, what are we going to do or get
drunk? O. K., count me in. Maybe we can get a couple more of the gang together.
It's Saturday, and none of us has to work tomorrow."

And it was undoubtedly a good thing that none of them did
have to work Sunday, for few of them would have been able to. It was a highly
successful stag evening. Drinks at Tony's, and then a spot of howling until the
manager of the alleys began to get huffy about people bowling balls that
started down one alley, jumped the groove, and knocked down pins in the alley
adjacent.

And then they'd gone--

Next morning Charlie tried to remember all the places they'd
been and all the things they'd done, and decided he was glad he couldn
^'
t.
For one thing, he had a confused recollection of having tried to start a fight
with a Hawaiian guitar player who was wearing a lei, and that he had drunkenly
accused the guitarist of stealing his golf ball. But the others had dragged him
out of the place before the police got there.

And somewhere around one o'clock they
^'
d eaten,
and Charlie had been so cussed that he'd insisted on trying four eateries
before they found one which served duck.

He was going to avenge his golf ball by eating duck. All in
all, a very silly and successful spree. Undoubtedly worth a mild hangover.

After all, a guy gets married only once. At least, a man who
has a girl like Jane Pemberton in love with him gets married only once.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened Sunday. He saw Jane and
again had dinner with the Pembertons. And every time he looked at Jane, or
touched her, Charlie had something the sensation of a green pilot making his
first outside loop in a fast plane, but that was nothing out of the ordinary.
The poor guy was in love.

But on Monday--

Monday was the day that really upset the apple cart. After
five fifty-five o'clock Monday afternoon, Charlie knew it was hopeless.

In the morning, he made arrangements with the minister who
was to perform the ceremony, and in the afternoon he did a lot of last-minute
shopping in the wardrobe line. He found it took him longer than he'd thought.

At five-thirty he began to doubt if he was going to have time
to call for the wedding ring. It had been bought and paid for, previously, but
was still at the jewelers
^'
being suitably engraved with initials.

He was still on the other side of town at five-thirty,
awaiting alterations on a suit, and he phoned Pete Johnson from the tailor's:

^"
Say, Pete, can you do an errand for
me?"

"Sure, Charlie. What's up?"

"I want to get the wedding ring before the store closes
at six, so I won
^'
t have to come downtown at all tomorrow. It
^'
s
right in the block with you; Scorwald & Benning's store. It's paid for;
will you pick it up for me? I'll phone 'em to give it to you."

^"
Glad to. Say, where are you? I'm eating
downtown tonight; how
^'
s about putting the feed bag on with me?"

^"
Sure, Pete. Listen, maybe I
can
get
to the jewelers' in time; I
^'
m just calling you to play safe. Tell
you what; I'll meet you there. You be there at five minutes of six to be sure
of getting the ring, and I'll get there at the same time if I can. If I can't,
wait for me outside. I won
^'
t be later than six-fifteen at the
latest.
^"

And Charlie hung up the receiver and found the tailor had
the suit ready for him. He paid for it, then went outside and began to look
around for a taxi.

It took him ten minutes to find one, and still he knew he
was going to get to the jewelry store in time. In fact, it wouldn't have been
necessary for him to have phoned Pete. He'd get there easily by five
fifty-five.

And it was just a few seconds before that time when he
stepped out of the cab, paid off the driver, and strode up to the entrance.

It was just as his first foot crossed the threshold of the
Scorwald & Benning store that he noticed the peculiar odor. He had taken
one step farther before he recognized what it was, and then it was too late to
do anything about it.

It had him. Unconsciously, he'd taken a deep sniff of
identification, and the stuff was so strong, so pure, that he didn't need a
second. His lungs were filled with it.

And the floor seemed to his distorted vision to be a mile
away, but coming up slowly to meet him. Slowly, but getting there. He seemed to
hang suspended in the air for a measurable time. Then, before he landed,
everything was mercifully black and blank.

"Ether."

Charlie gawked at the white-uniformed doctor. "But how
the d-devil could I have got a dose of ether?
^"

Peter was there, too, looking down at him over the doctor's
shoulder. Pete's face was white and tense. Even before the doctor shrugged,
Pete was saying:
^"
Listen, Charlie, Doc Palmer is on his way
over here. I told 'em-
^"

Charlie was sick at his stomach, very sick. The doctor who
had said
^"
Ether" wasn't there, and neither was Doc Palmer,
but Pete now seemed to be arguing with a tall distinguished-looking gentleman
who had a spade beard and eves like a chicken hawk.

Pete was saying, 'Let the poor guy alone. Dammit, I've known
him all his life. He doesn't need an alienist. Sure he said screwy things while
he was under, but doesn't anybody talk silly under ether?
^"

^"
But, my young friend"-and the tall
man's voice was unctuous-"you quite misinterpret the hospital's motives in
asking that I examine him. I wish to prove him sane. If possible. He may have
had a legitimate reason for taking the ether. And also the affair of last week
when he was here for the first time. Surely a normal man-
^"

"But dammit, he DIDN'T TAKE that ether himself. I saw
him coming in the doorway after he got out of the cab. He walked naturally, and
he had his hands down at his sides. Then, all of a sudden, he just keeled
over."

"You suggest someone near him did it?
^"

^"
There
wasn't
anybody near him."

Charlie's eyes were closed but by the psychiatrist's tone of
voice, he could tell that the man was smiling.
^"
Then how, my
young friend,
do
you suggest that he was anesthetized?"

^"
Danunit, I don't know. I'm just saying he
didn
^'
t-"

"Pete!" Charlie recognized his own voice and found
that his eyes were open again. "Tell him to go to hell. Tell him to
certify me if he wants. Sure I'm crazy. Tell him about the worm and the duck.
Take me to the booby hatch. Tell him-"

"Ha.
^"
Again the voice with the spade
beard. "You have had previous . . . ah ... delusions?"

^"
Charlie, shut up! Doc, he's still under the
influence of the ether; don't listen to him. It isn't
fair
to psych a
guy when he doesn
^'
t know what he
^'
s talking about. For two
cents, I
^'
d-"

"Fair? My friend, psychiatry is not a game. I assure
you that I have this young man's interests at heart. Perhaps his . . . ah . .
. aberration is curable, and I wish to-"

Charlie sat up in bed. He yelled, "GET OUT OF HERE
BEFORE I-"

Things went black again.

The tortuous darkness, thick and smoky and sickening. And
he seemed to be creeping through a narrow tunnel toward a light. Then suddenly
he knew that he was conscious again. But maybe there was somebody around who
would talk to him and ask him questions if he opened his eyes, so he kept them
tightly shut.

He kept his eyes tightly shut, and thought.

There must be an answer.

There wasn't any answer.

An angelic angleworm.

Heat wave.

Duck in a showcase of coins.

Wilted wreath of ugly flowers.

Ether in a doorway.

Connect them; there
must
be a connection. It
had
to
make sense. It had to MAKE SENSE!

Least common denominator. Something that connects them, that
welds them into a coherent series, something that you can understand, something
that you can maybe do something about. Something you can fight.

Worm.

Heat.

Duck.

Wreath.

Ether.

Worm.

Meat.

Duck.

Wreath.

Ether.

Worm, heat, duck, wreath, ether, worm, heat, duck, wreath

They pounded through his head like beating on a tom-tom;
they screamed at him out of the darkness, and gibbered.

He must have slept, if you could call it sleep.

It was broad daylight again, and there was only a nurse in
the room. He asked,
^"
What--day is it?
^"

"Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Wills. Is there anything I
can do for you?"

Wednesday afternoon. Wedding day.